I mowed today.  I love to mow!  It is a very relaxing activity for me.  I enjoy the solitude and spending time outdoors.

There are certain things one must do while mowing.  Well, really only one.  That is to make certain that all of your passes in the lawn are perfectly straight.  Straight lines in your yard (remember, the neighbors can see your yard!) are a must.  Today was an Epic Fail!

We have received a great deal of rain here in Mississippi.  There are parts of our yard with close to a foot of standing water.  They are growing aquatic plants!  These plants must be even with the rest of the grass, but, alas, not even my beloved John Deere Z425 zero turn radius mower can handle that much water.  I had to mow around the standing water.  You can tell.  My lines are not straight.  Boo.  From the weather forecast, with the upcoming rain, it will be a long time until the lines are straight, too.

As I was bemoaning my lack of straight lines, I began to notice a new pattern in my yard.  This time in the grass.  There were very lush, very green, very tall patches of grass in the yard~rectangular patches.  This hit my funny bone!

You see, we keep the chickens in a chicken tractor.  It is rectangular (BIG rectangle~4’X8′) and we relocate it to different parts of our 2 acres every other day.  Chickens poop a LOT and they are very good fertilizers for the grass!  That solved the query as to what was causing the rectangle patches of grass.

The last thing that I love about mowing is the circles.  Yes, you heard me right.  Circles.~~~Fire Ant Hills.

I love mowing over Fire Ant hills!  Totally and completely decimating the hill with one pass and on the next pass watching a lot of very angry Fire Ants running around in a fury!  That is a lot of fun!

One time last year I was mowing over Fire Ant hills and I took a big one out, but I was not paying attention to the direction of the wind.  BAD.  The wind blew a lot of very angry Fire Ants all over me.  I kept on mowing, frantically brushing them off of me, but it was not working.  Finally, I had to stop the mower, get off and dance a little bit while I was brushing them off.  I got bit that time but it still has not cured me of mowing over those hills.

So, yes, mowing today was a lesson in geometry.  Lines and shapes.  I did not try to connect line A to point B or anything like that, but I was enjoying myself and accepting the challenges of the Fire Ant hills, trying to make my lines straight and getting a chuckle from those green rectangles.   🙂